


This wonderful plan, without danger or loss

by derevko_child



Category: Ant-Man (Movies), Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Spoilers, F/M, Father-Daughter Relationship, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-25
Updated: 2016-08-12
Packaged: 2018-06-10 16:41:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 19,032
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6964822
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/derevko_child/pseuds/derevko_child
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i> When she sees men in dark suits hovering by the front door, she immediately knows that at some point in the past few days, Scott Lang made a very poor life decision.</i>
</p><p>Wherein Hope and Hank argue their way to a search and rescue operation by breaking a few laws and encountering an Avenger or two.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

There are two black sedans parked outside Hank’s home, with engines still running as though they’re ready to leave anytime.

Hope parks her car behind her usual spot. When she sees men in dark suits hovering by the front door, she immediately knows that at some point in the past few days, Scott Lang made a very poor life decision.

There was a knock on her window. Hope glances to her side and sees another man in a dark suit standing beside her door. A small American flag was pinned on the lapel of his suit.

“May I ask what your business here is, ma’am?” he asks as she lowers down the window.

The question, in Hope’s opinion, is a little bit absurd coming from him. She grew up in this neighborhood; majority of the people who live here still call her Hope Pym.

“I grew up in that house,” she motions to the Victorian home a few meters away from them, “Where my father still lives. Maybe I should be the one asking you what your business here is.” She says, possibly a little bit too pointedly.  
  
“Hank Pym’s your father?”

She gives him a tight smile, “Unfortunately.”

The man turns her back to her and after a few minutes, looks back at her and asks for identification. Hope gives him her Pym Tech ID—the one that says ‘CEO’. He looks at it for merely a second before handing it back to her.

“Ms. Van Dyne.” The man greets her and gives her a slight nod of the head before leaving.

Hope takes a moment to gather her composure and her belongings before stepping out of her car. Whatever Scott did (or Hank, but considering that Hank prefers to be in his lab most of the times… it’s definitely Scott), it’s serious enough that it warrants a visit from someone who’s guarded by the Secret Service.

When she entered the house, an agent tells her that Hank is receiving Secretary Ross in their garden.

The Secretary of State. Of course.

“Hope.” Hank greets her – loudly – when she steps out to the garden. Her father and the Secretary of State are seated in one of the chairs in the middle of the garden, drinking coffee and bourbon. Hank stands up and gives her a quick embrace.

“Secretary Ross, this is my daughter. Hope, this is General Thaddeus Ross who’s also currently the State Secretary.” Hank says and keeps an arm around her shoulders.

Hank’s gesture is protective; she wonders what could have transpired between the two men for Hank to adopt the stance almost immediately.

Hope reaches out to shake the Ross’ hand, “It’s an honor to meet you, Mr. Secretary.” She smiles, her tone— even. They do not betray the fact that the Secretary’s vise-like grip is not only hurting her but also makes her want to punch him in the face.

“What brings you to San Francisco?” she asks when she finally frees her hand of him. She silently refuses Hank’s offer of coffee as he motions her to sit on the chair besides his, putting himself in between Ross and her.

Ross’ gives her a charmless smile, “As I was saying to your father, his name came up when we were investigating a certain Scott Lang.” His voice was gruff and authoritative; like someone who’s determined to get what he wants.

She looks at Hank and notices that he’s wearing his ant comm device. He also has the speak-louder-I’m-deaf expression on his face.

“I’m sorry, who?” she asks, feigning confusion as she looks at Ross again.

“Scott Lang. He has an extensive criminal record but if you sum it all up, he’s a robber, plain and simple.”

Scott would take offense with the description. He’s very particular with the distinction between a robbery and a theft; a robber from a burglar (or a thief). One is done with violence; the other done with stealth, and, to quote Scott, “involves science and science things”. (He isn’t very specific with the legal nuances, which she’s sure actually has more bearing).

Ross takes a sip of his bourbon, “We believe he’s currently aiding and abetting terrorists.”

Hope blinks. That was… unexpected. If she had accepted Hank’s offer of a drink, she would have probably choked on it after hearing the news.

“Wow.” She says, not really knowing what else to say.

Just… wow.

“That’s quite a jump from robbery.” Hank says, a little bit loudly, “And how did my name come up in this? Surely, you don’t think—”

“Of course, not, Dr. Pym. When we were running background checks on him, we learned that he had robbed, or attempted to rob your house last year?” Ross motions to an unseen agent who later hands him a folder, which he gives to Hank, “The charges were dropped by the police but your name stood out.”

Hank checks the file and gives it to her, “Well, my memory isn’t as good as it used to be, but I do remember my house crawling with police last year. I don’t remember anything being stolen… which is probably why I never thought much of it.”

Hope doesn’t say anything. As far as the world knows, her step towards reconciliation with her father only happened after the Pym Tech building disappeared out of thin air. And only three people know who called the cops on Scott that night, two of them being in this garden and the other one being… well, being accused of aiding and abetting terrorists.

She can feel Ross scrutinizing her so she pretends to read the very flimsy file, trying to think of what Ross could possibly want. If they ran a background check on Scott, it means they already know about Cassie and Maggie, maybe Paxton. They would already know about Luis, maybe even Kurt and Dave.

Come to think of it, _they_ could be the terrorist in this situation, if they think they were behind the Pym Tech…incident. However, Darren’s descent into madness – something that was so obvious if his interviews from the months prior to the event were watched in one continuous sitting – and his escape before the implosion made him the perfect scapegoat.

“From what I understand, you were affiliated with SHIELD in the 70s?” Ross inquires.

Hank nods his head slowly, “Consultant. Quit after my wife died.”

“In a plane crash.” Ross adds.

“Yes.”

Hope presses her lips together. Disgust is her automatic reaction when she hears that her mother died in a plane crash. It sounded like such a bald-faced lie when she was younger and hearing it being said over and over again – especially by Hank – made her feel like it was an intentional disrespect of her mother’s memory.

“Well, it would seem that Lang has been using old SHIELD tech.” Ross says.

Hank picks up his cup of coffee from the table and takes a sip. Ants were already starting to troop towards the small bowl of sugar cubes. There were also several ants on the Secretary’s back but it isn’t because he’s sweet.

“I thought you didn’t think I was involved.” He replies, finally.

“We don’t. We believe he stole the tech from you.”

Hank furrows his brows, “Only thing I still have from SHIELD after I quit is my intense hatred for the Starks.” he shrugs, “And even if I did take anything, it’s obsolete. The leaps we made in technological advancement since the 80s were… impressive.”

“So you think it’s a coincidence that a year after Lang robbed from your house, he turns up a year later in another part of the world, assisting Captain America commit illegal acts and destroying an airport in the process?”

Ross tries to keep his voice smooth, but his words angrily tumble out of his lips.

And since when did they start calling Captain America a terrorist?

“Captain America’s a terrorist now?” Her father asks, expressing her thoughts.

Ross’ eyes narrow, “He became one when he helped the Winter Soldier escape from custody.”

Scott Lang is in _so_ much trouble.

“I see.” Hank turns towards the house, a thoughtful look appearing on his face, “I don’t think I can help you with what you want, Mr. Secretary. This… Mr. Lang using SHIELD tech doesn’t mean he got it from someone who had connections to SHIELD, especially since there is no more SHIELD.”

A grim smile appears on Ross’ face. He takes a sip of bourbon before putting it down on the glass table. He notices the ants near the sugar cubes, marching in a straight line. He flicks one off the table and looks at Hank, “Ants. Tricky little bastards.”

Hank shrugs, “That’s nature for you.” He stands, slowly, as Ross stands up.

“It seems we have nothing more to discuss.” He holds out his hand, “It’s an honor to finally meet you, Dr. Pym.” Ross says and shakes Hank’s hand.

“Likewise, Mr. Secretary.”

Ross glances at her, “Ms. Van Dyne.” He says and glances back at her father, “We’ll see ourselves out. Have a good day, Dr. Pym.”

Both Hank and Hope watch as the Secretary of State walk out of the garden, followed by the Secret Service Agent posted by the door. They waited until they couldn’t hear the droning of the car engines ready to go at a moment’s notice. They waited until all they could hear are the birds chirping and the neighborhood kids running about.

Hank reaches under the chair where Ross sat and pulled out a tiny listening device from underneath. He showed it to her first before throwing it on the ground and smashing it to bits with the heel of his shoe.

“You think he knows?”

“If he did, we’ll both be in jail.”

Hank takes a deep breath and exhales slowly. A mix of wistfulness and annoyance appears on his face. “Lang is an idiot.”

Hope watches as an army of fire ants take all the smashed pieces away. She then looks at her father.

“Let’s go save the idiot then.”

* * *

The first order of business after Secretary Ross and his entourage left was to sweep the house for any listening or recording device. They started with the kitchen and worked their way towards the inside of the house.

“How’s the new building coming along?” Hank asks as he and his troop of crazy ants inspect the corridor for bugs of the technological (and governmental) kind.

“I think it could go a little faster but we’re on schedule. We can have the inauguration by January of next year.” She answers as she does her own sweep in the living room. She has her own group of crazy ants, marching to corners she can’t reach and frying the listening devices before retrieving it for her.

“Heard you closed the Igarashi deal.”

Hope doesn’t ask how he knows about that because for all she knows, he has his ants crawling around Pym Tech’s office in New York.

She takes a glance at him, “Some details are still being finalized but it’s in the bag,” she says and then adds, not wanting to jinx it, “I think.”

Hank nods his head and looks at her, “Good job.”

There’s a slight second where she swears she felt time stop when she heard her father’s words. She rarely heard any words of approval from Hank Pym and hearing it when she least expects it (hearing it at _all_ after all these years) forms a lump on her throat.

“Thanks.” She replies, after what seemed like forever. Times like this, she wishes Scott was here. The man had a gift for ruining moments, but he always knew how to diffuse an awkward silence with a joke or two.

They continued their sweep in silence. Hope goes up to check if the Ross’ men planted anything in the second floor while Hank checks the basement.

She found a total of six listening devices in the second floor and attic (she admires their thoroughness, truly) and when she goes down the kitchen, she sees that Hank had already ordered some takeout for dinner. And from the smell of it, it’s from her favorite Thai restaurant. There’s also a strange-looking device on the counter.

“Put those things in the fire.” Hank says, stepping inside from the garden.

Hope tosses the bugs in the makeshift bonfire in the garden as her troop of ants walk out of the kitchen. The fire crackles as the small (and definitely expensive) pieces of equipment start melting.

“How many did you find?”

“Including the one in the living room, 10. How about you?” she asks and makes her way to the counter to prepare their dinner. A glance at the clock tells her that they’ve been doing the sweep for almost three hours.

“Eight. They tried going in the basement, I guess that failed because they installed a camera.”

“They’re well-funded. Those aren’t the type made available to the public.” Hope comments as she takes out the plates, “What’s this?” she asks, motioning to the device on the edge of the kitchen counter.

“Bug killer. In case we missed anything.” Hank replies as helps her set the table, “Right now, it covers only the kitchen. Interferes with both audio and video. SHIELD-issued.”

“From the 80s?” Hope asks in a slightly incredulous tone.

“The technology of today was built on the technology of yesterday. It’s a basic build.” Hank shrugs, “It also works against phones.”

Hope checks her phone and sees that she has lost network coverage.

“That’s… impressive.”

“It’s only for tonight. The ants can make a final sweep tomorrow morning.” Hank says and takes the food from its plastic containers, “Speaking of bugs, we have our own on Ross. Hopefully, we get a lead on where the suit is.”

“And Scott.” She adds.

Hank nods his head, but his reluctance is obvious, “And Scott.” He repeats after her.

The tech is dangerous—she knows that. What it did to the Pym Tech building should be an indicator of its potential for destruction. But she’s not going to let Hank get away with acting like his technology is more important than human life.

“I know what you’re thinking, Hope—”

She cuts him off, “Yes, that your primary concern will always be the suit and the tech. I understand that _perfectly_. But just because you loathe yourself doesn’t mean that everyone who wears the suit is expendable.”

Hank clenches his jaw and Hope takes a deep breath, anticipating a lash of the famous Pym temper. But instead, her father starts eating the food on his plate and doesn’t say anything.

She rubs her right thumb over her left palm, where her nails had dug in to keep her own temper in check.

It’s ridiculous how fast their disposition with each other can go from warm and fuzzy to arctic cold in a split second.

The tension is palpable as they eat their dinner. It’s a throwback of sorts to when she was a teenager, during those rare times when she’d be home from boarding school and he’d actually come home early to have dinner with her. They would always end up arguing – about mom, about school, about the fact that he never seemed to care about her at all – but they were also be too pigheaded to leave the table because doing so would mean that the other had successfully gotten under their skin.

It’s actually the same situation right now, the difference being that they’ve started to actually understand each other. Working together on her mother’s suit seemed to have done wonders to their relationship, but it doesn’t mean they can’t take a tentative step backwards.

Hope takes occasional glances at Hank throughout dinner. She doesn’t think that they will get a hint of Scott’s location (or the suit, for that matter), if they just listened to Ross’ phone. This rescue operation will need more than just two people to have a fighting chance of being successful. An army of ants can only do so much.

Hank might not have realized this yet, but they’re going to need help.

And she thinks there are at least three people who are willing to do so.

* * *

There’s a conspicuous van parked in the street across the house. It wasn’t white, but its mere presence in the neighborhood makes it stick out like a sore thumb. It’s so obvious it’s a surveillance van that nobody will bat an eyelash if the people inside throw their doors open and invite everybody for a tour.

“How long has it been there?” she asks Hank as she suits up in the small room inside the lab. She’s putting on the old Ant-Man suit—they had to rehaul hers when she and Scott had an unfortunate run-in with the neighbor’s cat but it’s still undergoing more improvements due to Hank and Scott’s theory.

“Two hours. At least.” Hank answers and hands her one of the upgraded ant communicator as she walks out to the lab.

Hope ties her hair into a tight braid, and rolled it in a tidy bun, making sure that her bangs, which she was growing out, won’t cover her eyes inside the helmet. She looks at the screens in front of her. The ones on the upper left show the van in different angles.

They plan to plant their own surveillance device in the van and leave a signal disruptor to temporarily prevent their devices from listening in on them, in case they missed any bugs. Hank can do that from the lab while she’s off to Luis’ apartment in the other side of the city, where she expects to do the same (sweep the neighborhood for the vans, sweep the boys’ apartment, be the voice of reason, etc, etc.)

“Don’t get caught with those three stooges,” was her father’s version of good luck when she puts on the Ant-Man helmet.

“I won’t.”

The helmet snaps in place and she pushes the button by her thumb. Her heart lurches and her stomach turn inside out as everything around her expands at a dizzying speed.

It takes her a few seconds to adjust to her surroundings. She admits that it took her a while to adapt to being tiny when she first wore her suit, which had given her a different appreciation of Scott. He was still adjusting to being a free man, struggling with getting his life together so that he can be deemed worthy enough to see his daughter and at the same time being beaten up to shape by her, learning to _be_ Ant-Man while making sure that the heist worked… and to be able to pull off the last two and not dying in the process is actually pretty impressive.

Although if anyone asks her, she’d still say that if they had put her in the suit, the heist would have gone more smoothly.

When the stars disappeared from her eyes and her stomach has settled in, she calls for Marie Antoinette and the rest of her winged cavalry (she has voiced out her misgivings about naming the ant – or anyone in particular – after a historical figure that got their head lopped off during a revolution, but the name just stuck)

She pats Marie Antoinette on the head before climbing onto the saddle on the ant’s back.

“Let’s go.” She says and the ants lift off from the floor, flying out of the lab, and to the ant passageway that leads directly to the garden.

Riding an ant to travel is very different from just flying on her own. For one thing, while she may order an ant to go to places and even direct its speed, she can’t order it _how_ to fly. They just… do it. But the view from where she is is the same. It could do a lot of things to a person’s ego— seeing the world from this perspective could make someone feel even more insignificant. Like a minute fleck of a minute fleck in the very vast cosmos.

They fly towards Luis’ apartment at a dizzying speed. She clings to Marie Antoinette’s saddle as the bright, colorful lights from the cars and the buildings dance around the edges of her eyes before becoming a blur.

Hope has no idea how to get to her destination in her size, but the ants seem to know the way when she told them their destination, so she guesses that’s an advantage over flying (it’s not like Hank has made a Google map for ants for her to use… well, at least not yet).

She doesn’t know how long they fly but after a while, Marie Antoinette lands on the windowsill on the third floor of a rundown apartment complex in the downtown part of San Francisco.

When she peers inside, she finds the men in their usual positions (even during those rare times when she’s there): Luis is in the kitchen, Kurt is in front of his laptop and Dave is seated on the couch, playing on his cellphone.

Hope orders the ants to make a sweep of the street. The other carpenter ants have a tiny camera perched on their backs to enable Hank to see what they’re seeing. While she waits for Hank’s assessment, she climbs down from the saddle and starts stretching her legs.

“Any of you seen Scott anywhere?” she hears Kurt ask.

“Nah, man. But he did mention Captain America asked for his help, but I dunno if it’s legit or he’s dreaming.” She hears Dave answer.

 _“There’s a van parked on the curb downstairs. Your six o’clock.”_ Hank’s voice is crystal clear in the comms after a few seconds.

She climbed on Marie Antoinette’s back again and they fly underneath the van. Hope mentally calls for one of the carpenter ants carrying the signal disruptor as they landed on the pavement. She works quickly, first converting the device to its original size, applying adhesive on it before installing it in the middle of the van’s underbody.

She then presses the button on the side, “Disruptor’s in place.”

_“Copy that.”_

She hops back on to Marie Antoinette and the ant brings her to the door of the van. She orders the ants to clear out from the path before slipping through the small crack under the door. She can’t risk using the ants— a bunch of them outside might not raise any eyebrows but it’s another story if it’s inside a cramp space like a van.

There were two men inside, both of whom are lazily watching the monitors. Luis is blathering about in the speakers but the men aren’t listening.

“The old man found all the bugs inside the house.”

“All of them?”

“Yeah.”

“He’s ex-SHIELD. What do you expect?”

Hope climbs up to the corner of the van, using the equipment stacked against the wall as a ladder. She had little practice with using the ants to climb on walls since she had her focus on flying with her suit.

“Yeah, but I thought he was a scientist for them or something.”

“Nah, I heard he’s the guy they send in for assassinations.”

She first discovered that Hank and her mother worked for SHIELD at fourteen when she found pictures in the attic. She didn’t know they were SHIELD at first, but then she saw a few pictures of her parents with Peggy Carter.

(Or Aunt Peggy as she called her. Her Aunt Peggy who told her that talent and intelligence can get one far, but it’s hard work that gets one farther in life. Her Aunt Peggy, who encouraged her to take up martial arts, who took her to art galleries during summers, and who visited her in her boarding school when Hank couldn’t be bothered. Her Aunt Peggy… who passed away a few days ago)

Later on, the knowledge that Hank could make himself as tiny as ant might have made her think that her father was capable of cold-blooded murder. Except Hank’s anger runs hot and while that doesn’t mean he can’t perform that degree of brutality, it just means that (for her, anyway) he’s not the type to easily partake in assassinations.

She reaches the corner of the van and takes the listening bug from her pocket. She installs the bug first before transforming it back to its original size.

“Bug is in place.”

 _“Copy that.”_ Hank says through the comms, _“And for the record, I did not do any assassination ops for SHIELD.”_

Hope starts her descent, jumping from one pile of equipment to another.

 _“The disruptor’s going online in three minutes.”_ Hank says, which is plenty of time to get back to the apartment.

She slips out of the door and jumps out of the van, with Marie Antoinette catching her midway down. The ant brings her back to the third floor of the rundown apartment complex and enters the flat through the bathroom. The door to the living area was open so Hope and Marie Antoinette zoomed out to the where the boys are.

“I mean, if Captain America asks for your help, you give it, right?” she hears Luis ask, “I would. My cousins would. My _abuela_ would.

“Why would Captain America ask help from your _abuela_?”

“Because she’s a badass, you know.”

_“Disruptor’s going online in 45 seconds.”_

Hope orders Scott’s ant to fly towards the windows so that she can close the curtains. As they speed towards the wall, she reaches out and takes hold of the cloth, the curtains sliding to a close with a flick of her wrist. She proceeds to the next window and does the same.

The three men go quiet and she can feel the fear starting to rise. She directs Marie Antoinette to the TV so that she can switch it on.

“What kind of horror movie shit is this?!” Dave shouts when the TV comes to life. A man screaming about the end of the world because of superheroes appears on the screen.

 _“Disruptor’s online.”_ Hank reports, which is her signal to go big.

Hope presses the button by her thumb and watches as everything around her shrink.

Half a second later, Luis, Kurt, and Dave’s horrified screams fill the room.

* * *

The three calmed relatively quickly and had initially assumed that she was Scott, until Luis noticed that the suit didn’t fit her frame well.

And when they found out it was her, they immediately knew that their friend was in trouble and asked what they could do to help.

 _(“Screw Captain America, if Scott’s girl asks for our help, we give it.”_ Dave says.

_“I’m not Scott’s girlfriend.”_

_“Well, Scottie also goes, ‘Guys, Hope’s not my girlfriend’.”_ Luis offers and then looks at the others with a slightly goofy look on his face, _“Remember when he talked about getting a nice dress shirt for a dinner with Hope and he was like, this isn’t a date but I also want to look nice even though it’s not a date, you know? And I went, so, it’s like a non-date? And he went, ‘yeah, like that, a non-date.’ So we bought this really nice wine-colored shirt that looked great with one of his old slacks and then I told him about that time Ignacio went on a non-date and…”)_

And that was how Luis and Dave ended up volunteering to sweep their apartment for listening devices installed by still-anonymous government agencies.

“There’s chatter about superhero faceoff in Berlin airport.” Kurt says.

“How reliable is it?” Hope asks as she sips from an excellent mug of tea given to her by Luis. She took off her helmet, which is sitting in the middle of the table. Marie Antoinette and the other ants are on the table, feasting on sugar.

“Well, the chatter is in German, but they have small video.” Kurt answers and then shifts the position of the laptop screen so that it’ll face her, “A crappy video. From what I can understand, they question why media has not shown anything. But they also understand why because it looks like Bigfoot is ten stories high.”

Luis and Dave go to where she’s sitting to watch the video with her.

The video was grainy but it shows what seems like a really, really large humanoid in a black, red and silver suit swatting away flying objects and breaking a plane wing in half. The video ends abruptly when it gets hit with debris.

It looks like a scene from King Kong, if King Kong’s iconic Empire State Building scene was set in a non-descript airport and flying men in iron suits were trying to bring him down.

Hope stares at the screen dumbfounded.

Scott’s joke ( _“If the Pym Particles can make me tiny, can’t you reverse the process and make me a giant?”_ ) turned into Scott and Hank’s hypothesis ( _“Can we call it the Lang Particle?” “No. It’s made from the same formula, which means it’s_ still _the Pym Particle.”_ ), which had led to an overall suit rehaul ( _“Can’t we use this on Hope’s suit too?”_ ). The hypothesis was tested almost a month ago and for eight long seconds, it was a theory ( _“Holy shit, guys._ Holy. _Shit.”_ )

Of course, every scientific discovery requires small disasters once in a while. In this case, they have a rather large hole in the ceiling of their off-site lab, and the giant transformation knocked Scott out for three hours (the first thought when she saw him unconscious was that they might just have killed Cassie’s dad). It also depleted all the reserve Pym Particles in his suit, which would explain why he got caught.

(But he’s an idiot for doing it again so soon. A fucking idiot.)

“That was slightly terrifying.” Dave remarks after what a while.

She turns to Kurt, “Get everything you can in Berlin. If you can hack airport security cameras, do it. Berlin traffic cams, everything. We want to know where they went after this.” She says.

 _“They’re having some guys check in on the apartment.”_ Hank warns her.

She turns to Dave and Luis, “Are those all you found?” she asks, motioning to the black, plastic things on Luis’ hand.

“Yeah.”

“Destroy them then flush all the pieces in the toilet.” She orders. Luis nods his head and hurries to the bathroom.

“You know how to get to the meeting place?” she asks them.

At the same time, there was a hurried knock on the door, “Sir? Are you okay? Someone called in regarding a person in distress. They heard someone screaming in this apartment.”

All three of them still in the room look at each other. This is not the kind of neighborhood that concerns itself with the screaming of its residents.

“Those are the men I was talking about a while ago,” she says, her voice dropping to a whisper. She hands Kurt a flash drive, “Everything you find, you save it here.” She grabs the helmet from the table and starts to put it on as she gives them last minute reminders.

“Don’t get caught on your way to the meet-up.” She says in a low voice and clasps the helmet in place, “And don’t allow them to go inside without a warrant.”

The knocks become more persistent, “Sir, is everything okay?”

When she disappears from sight, Dave goes towards the door and unbolts all the locks.

“Yeah, man. We’re watching a horror movie.”

* * *

Hope wakes up the following day to the delicious scent of coffee in the room.

Instead of going back to her apartment last night, she opted to stay in Hank’s house. She downloads a copy of the Sokovia Accords from the UN website and accompanied Hank in the lab, where he was finalizing the upgrade on her wings. She read the Accords while he worked, their silence punctuated by Secretary Ross’ occasional snores, captured by the bug on his phone.

She stayed in the lab even when Hank had retired for the night, absorbed with what she was reading.

It was only when she felt the exhaustion of the entire day bearing down on her did she drag herself up the stairs and in to her old room to sleep.

Hope pulls herself up on the bed and sees that a cup of coffee is on her side table. She takes a deep breath and takes the scent in. A coffee delivery to her room means Hank found something, but it isn’t that urgent to warrant an actual wake-up call.

She opens her eyes, reaches for the coffee and takes a sip. Black coffee. One sugar. Perfection.

There’s a knock on the door a few minutes later and Hank’s head pops in the doorway.

“Good, you’re awake.” He says as he steps inside. He walks towards her and sits at the foot of the bed, where he would usually sit when it’s her mother’s turn to read her a bedtime story.

A wistful look appears on her face which Hope quickly masks, “Good morning to you too,” she replies dryly.

“Don’t you usually sleep in the guest bedroom?” he asks, clasping his hands in front of him.

She cradles the cup in her palm and shrugs, “Habit, I guess.”

Hank nods his head at her response, taking care to avoid looking at the framed picture of her mother on the table beside her bed.

She remembers why she normally sleeps in the guest room.

“Well, I have good news and bad news.” He says, not waiting for her to finish her coffee before starting.

“That’s fast.”

“Secretary Ross is a busy man who’s also very talkative.”

Hope smirks.

“Anyway, the good news is that we know where the suit is. The bad news is that Scott isn’t there. And judging from Ross’ use of plurals, he’s not the only one being detained.”

Hank sighs and she could feel a bit of dread settling in her stomach.

“That’s not all the bad news, isn’t it?”

“All of the confiscated gears are in the Pentagon.”

She waits for a beat. When she realizes that it wasn’t joke, it was her turn to sigh, “So you want to break into the Pentagon and steal everything?”

“We’re just going to steal the suit, but if you want to steal everything else they confiscated, there’s probably room for them.”

She covers her face with her hand and sighs once again.

“We’re going to jail.”

This time, Hank lets out an uneven laugh. He stands up and brushes his hands on his trousers as if sweeping away imaginary dust from his hands.

“Come on, out of bed.” He tells Hope and extends his hand to her.

Hope sets the cup on the table and takes her father’s hand. Hank pulls her out of the bed.

“Let’s steal from the Pentagon.”

 


	2. Chapter 2

  
The initial plan was as simple as a smash and grab—infiltrate the Pentagon, grab the suit then get out as fast as possible.  
  
But then she realized that there will be a lot of complications if they steal the suit first before getting Scott out. First of all, it would signal that a rescue will be underway. And second, if they steal only the suit, Ross will know it’s them (he’s not going to use this much manpower on all of them if he didn’t suspect anything. The fact that they’ve managed to turn their very expensive bugs into junk should have been enough to tell him that they’re more than capable of doing something downright shady)  
  
And she knows that Hank had realized this too because she saw his slight hesitation when talking about this possible strategy, as though he knows she’s immediately going to figure out what’s wrong with it but he’s putting it out there in the smallest chance that she won’t.  
  
“Stealing the suit first will make it easier to break Scott out.” Hank reasons. He hasn’t raised his voice – not yet – but they’re already keeping their distance from each other, both knowing how this conversation is going to end.  
  
“They know he goes tiny. If the suit’s gone, they’ll know someone’s going to break them out. And they’re going to take serious precautions to prevent infiltration.” Hope replies, crossing her arms in front of her.  
  
Hank sighs, “There are thousands of ways to infiltrate a well-secured building. They can tighten their security all they want but trust me; you will have no problems going in or out.”  
  
She knows he’s speaking from experience. She still hasn’t reconciled the idea that her father, a scientist, could and had toppled governments during his time with SHIELD. He may not be able to physically do that anymore, but his knowledge and experience with these things isn’t something that she can just ignore.  
  
“Even if we do get the suit to Scott, what about the rest of the people with him?”  
  
“What about them?”  
  
She angles her head to the side, looking at her father with narrow eyes. “Hank.” She says his name with sharpness that could cut flesh.  
  
He lets out a huff of exasperation, “You’re only one person, Hope. You can’t save everybody.” Hank starts to walk out of his study, “I’ll be in the basement to work on your wings. You’re welcome to join me if you want.”  
  
Hope pinches the bridge of her nose after Hank leaves the room.  
  
She’s not going to concede to Hank’s point just yet. They’re still at the preliminary planning stage of… whatever the hell this is. They still don’t have Scott’s location. For all they know, he’s being held in the middle of a rainforest, which might be a bit more dangerous to tiny creatures (although Hank might rebut this with a, “I went to the Amazon as Ant-Man to determine if Soviet agents were operating as rebel forces. This was before you were conceived so I obviously got out”).  
  
She sinks on the couch. At the very least, she can take consolation that their little debate now did not devolve into an ugly shouting match. It’s refreshing, actually. It sounded like an adult conversation.  
  
However, she doesn’t know if she’ll compromise with Hank on this one. Stealing from the Pentagon is not the same as stealing from Darren Cross. She likes her freedom, thank you very much (she’s going to kill Scott for putting them in this position). With any luck, Kurt will have something by this afternoon. They need to get a reality check of what they’re up against.  
  
Her phone vibrates and she fishes it out of her pocket. There’s a reminder in her calendar about her lunch meeting with Pym Tech’s San Francisco-based staff. She texts her assistant to email her the agenda for the meeting, since the only thing she can’t remember what else to be discussed aside from the progress of the ongoing construction of the new building.  
  
Hope stares into space, holding her phone to her chest. She thinks about Scott and how he doesn’t seem to consider the consequences of his actions. She knows why he said yes—he gushes like a schoolgirl when he talks about Captain America, the yardstick for the ideal superhero ( _“I feel like I just need to be an even better person, you know? For Cassie… and for Captain America – in case I meet him in person – because the only way you know you’re a good superhero is if both your kid and your hero are proud of you, right?”_ ) but she wants to know if he thought about Cassie before he said yes.   
  
She knows he didn’t think of the consequences of saying yes, but she can’t understand why he’d risk his life by going large when he couldn’t handle it the first time around. She wonders if he realized he could have been killed in that airport or if he merely shook off those thoughts (because Captain America).   
  
Did he even say goodbye to Cassie before he left?   
  
She admits that she’s angry that she has to pick up after him. Scott has a predilection for doing the wrong things for the right reasons. And the more she thinks about him and his stupid decision, she gets even angrier. But worry prevails because she also knows that he didn’t know just how far-reaching the consequences of saying yes to Captain America were (did anybody?).  
  
Her phone vibrates again. She doesn’t have to look at it to know that her assistant has sent her the agenda for today’s meeting.  
  
Hope stays seated for a few more minutes, appreciating the silence, before pulling herself up and go to the lab to say goodbye to Hank. She has CEO duties to attend to.  
  


* * *

  
She’s late.  
  
The meeting started on time but ended late, which means she’s also late for their meeting with Luis, Kurt and Dave in the off-site lab. It takes her even longer to get there, because it wasn’t easy evading the van that has been trailing her since she left the meeting. The bug and the tracker they put in her car, however, were disabled by Hank and the ants this morning while she was still asleep.  
  
She circles the surrounding areas thrice before driving her car into the lab’s garage, the door automatically closing behind her.  
  
This off-site lab was supposed to be _the_ site of Pym Technology, back when it was still an idea in Hank’s head. He bought the land with the intention of building Pym Tech on it but it was it was her mother who suggested that it be built where it used to stand (and where it will stand once again).  
  
When she kicked him out of the company, Hank built a lab to rival that of Pym Tech. They didn’t notice him build it— he had capitalized on his reputation as a recluse, and also because the land was under the name of one of his aliases under SHIELD.  
  
Speaking of Hank, his car’s already in the garage. When she walks inside, she finds him in the middle of a… spirited discussion with Luis and Dave while Kurt keeps busy with his laptop.  
  
“If not for that movie, we’ll all probably go, ‘William Randolph Who?’ instead of ‘that dude who named his sled after his mistress’ hoo-ha.” she hears Dave say as she walks to the middle of the room. The actual workshop overlooks the room where they are—the place where they train in their suits, recreating locations for infiltration simulations, and beating up crash-test dummies (and dummies made out of ballistic gel).   
  
“No, man, he didn’t name his sled after his mistress’ hoo-ha, it’s the other way around.” Luis corrects.  
  
Kurt looks at his friends, “Where did you get this? I watched movie from start to finish. Rosebud was _clearly_ name of sled.”  
  
“Well, I think Citizen Kane is overrated.” Hank remarks. Audible, shocked gasps come from both Luis and Dave, and Hank continues, “It’s a shallow look on Hearst’s true impact and the power of media to influence society and policy.”  
  
“Yo man, I don’t hear you shitting on the Pulitzer Prize.”  
  
Hank shrugs, “It’s a by-product of guilt and a way to compensate for all the wrongs he did in the name of ruthlessness and competition.”  
  
Hope puts her handbag on top of the table, beside Kurt, “I’m glad you four are getting along…?”   
  
Luis gives her a little wave and a bright smile.  
  
“Yeah, yeah. We’re just discussing about…” Dave trails off and glances at Hank, “one of the _greatest_ films of all time.”  
  
Hope hides her amusement. Dave looks truly offended with what Hank said and Luis looks like he’s going to have a heart attack any minute now. A glance at Hank tells her that he’s messing with the two.  
  
“What else did I miss aside from this interesting discussion of the greatest movie of all time?”  
  
The light mood turns somewhat somber.  
  
“Kurt?” Hank says.  
  
The younger man nodded his head and motions her to follow him to the other side of the lab, near the gym that was built just for her. Hank basically redid his lab back home, except he had outfitted this one with state-of-the-art equipment and it’s the size of an industrial warehouse.  
  
She sits in front of the monitors installed on the wall as Kurt types on his keyboard. A few seconds later a video flashes on the screen.  
  
“Found airport videos after fight.” He says, his voice sounding a little bit shaky. The video is split into three screens, covering different angles of people in costumes being apprehended or rushed to an ambulance.  
  
The media reported this as an attempt to arrest the Winter Soldier. The slant was that the Avengers themselves were in a disagreement on how to approach the capture, with Captain America refusing a capture-or-kill order. It was a clever way of not painting Captain America in a negative light; he was a man so upright, that he cannot accept the execution of a criminal without due process.   
  
The video on the left side shows someone being brought to an ambulance. The news also reported that Col. Rhodes was gravely injured during the fight. The video on the right, on the other hand, shows Scott’s limp body being half-dragged, half-carried by the German police towards a heavily-fortified truck. This wasn’t reported in the news. In fact, nobody has mentioned the fact that some Avengers were apprehended instead of the Winter Soldier.  
  
Hope keeps her eye on the video, “Do we know who’s with Scott in that truck?”  
  
“Uh, Wanda Maximoff, Hawkguy and the Birdman.” Kurt zooms in on the video and she clearly sees the Vision (she thinks that’s what he’s called) restraining Wanda Maximoff, “I don’t know if there are more of them.”  
  
The ambulance was escorted out of the airport by the German police while the fortified trucks were escorted out by the police, the military, Iron Man and the Vision.  
  
“Used street cams to track trucks.” Kurt says, and points to the screen, “German politsiya and military checkpoints all throughout the trip.”  
  
The trucks drive out to a small airfield where two small planes are waiting. The video doesn’t go any nearer and she watches as the trucks get smaller and disappear from sight.  
  
“Is this the closest you could get?”  
  
“No cameras inside airfield. However,” Kurt takes something from the desk underneath the monitors, and gives it to her, “Zoomed in and printed these.”  
  
The blown up images were a little low quality but it shows the German police handing off their prisoners to military personnel. And even though image is too grainy, she can clearly make out that the military personnel have the US flag in their uniforms.  
  
“US Military?”  
  
Kurt nods his head, “Mr. Pym also noticed. I did digging and seems those planes are used by US military too.”  
  
The Accords provides that individuals subject of the agreement will be apprehended and detained by UN Forces. These men are obviously not UN Forces.  
  
“I am checking for faces in pictures to see if we get something from them.”  
  
“That’s very thorough.”  
  
“Mr. Pym suggested it.”  
  
She looks at Hank who’s waiting for them to finish, “Of course he did.” She says in a low tone. Hank approaches them and Kurt leaves hurriedly when Hank gives him a look.  
  
“So,” He starts and leans on the desk, “You up to speed?”  
  
Hope nods her head, “Yeah.”  
  
They’re going against the full might of the US Military. Probably. But they’re definitely going against the Secretary of State. And as a former general, Ross would certainly still have connections in the military.  
  
Hank clasps his hands in front of him, scrutinizing her face. Her lips curl into a frown and she rubs her left temple, the gravity of the situation finally settling in.  
  
“We’re fucked.” She says with a sigh.  
  
He shrugs, “It’s just treason, maybe terrorism. If we get caught.”  
  
Hope looks at her father, who gives her a small smile. She takes a deep breath as she leans on the chair, resting her elbow on the arm rest. She tucks her hand under her chin, “What do you really think?” she asks because he actually sounds optimistic. Hank Pym doesn’t do optimistic.  
  
“I think it’s _very_ risky.” Hank replies, almost immediately. “And I don’t want you to put yourself in this situation. Not for Scott. Not even for the suit.”  
  
She remembers what Scott told her in her car, when she had walked out of the house, furious at Hank for not seeing her as someone more than capable of wearing the suit. Scott said it in a way that made her realize that he was seeing it from a father’s perspective. It was from that conversation where she understood that sometimes, fathers can sacrifice everything for their daughters. And that some fathers will sacrifice everything _but_ their daughters.  
  
She then thinks of Cassie, and how Scott risked everything – even his life – to prove that he deserves to be in his daughter’s life.  
  
Then she thinks about his situation now.  
  
“If the situation was reversed, Scott wouldn’t think twice to break me out.”  
  
“Of course he wouldn’t think twice.” Hank replies with a snort, “The man’s in…” he trails off when he sees the bemused expression on her face.  
  
She was supposed to ignore Hank’s comment; he’s being a bit more irreverent than usual. But the way he said it somewhat piqued her curiosity. He makes it sound like there’s… something. She can’t pinpoint what it is yet.  
  
“He’s in what?” Hope asks, her head tilting slightly to the side as she studies Hank’s face.  
  
“The man’s in a lot of trouble if he wouldn’t try to break you out.” he shrugs, “I’d kill him with my bare hands if he wouldn’t.”  
  
Hope rolls her eyes (because yes, she has no doubt that if the situation was reversed, Hank will definitely do just that if there was even a hint of hesitation from Scott). She shifts in her chair and looks at Scott’s friends.  
  
“Do those three know what they’re getting into?”  
  
“They’re all onboard with whatever we come up with.”  
  
It both awes her and terrifies her that Scott has friends who wouldn’t think twice about helping him, no matter what the circumstances. It awes her because she hasn’t met anyone who can inspire so much loyalty from people. And it terrifies her because the three of them will be in the most vulnerable position if this rescue fails.  
  
“And they’re also scared of you, so there’s that.” Hank adds.  
  
Hope scoffs (except yes, they are scared of her) and glances at the three men again.  
  
“Are you sure you really want to do this?” Hank asks, after a while, breaking the silence between them.  
  
She takes a deep breath and exhales slowly before looking at her father.   
  
“Yes.”  
  
He lets out a heavy sigh, “Give me a few days. Although it would help if we have more bugs on Ross.”  
  
This time, it’s her turn to shrug, “So we put more bugs on Ross.” She says, as if it’s a very simple solution to a complicated problem.  
  
“And when do you propose to do that?” he asks with a raised brow.  
  
She’s due back in New York tomorrow and will not return home until the end of the week. Hank’s working on her wings, which means it might be ready by the end of the week, but she’s working on her suit’s stingers which won’t get any work done this week.   
  
Although the real question is, does she really want to wait until the end of the week to do this? The old Ant-Man suit works properly, and although it doesn’t fit her well, she can use it to do the job,  
  
“Tonight.”  
  
There was a beat of silence.  
  
But Hank seems to have expected her answer because he merely nods his head. “You should probably get some sleep before you leave for D.C. Wouldn’t want you to pass out while riding Marie Antoinette.”  
  
And with that, their little meeting is finished. Hank motions for her to go (and do what he says) before asking Dave to check flights to Washington D.C.  
  
Hope can hear the three men start to assign tasks to themselves as she makes her way to the elevator. The trip was short, and she makes her way inside the lab and goes straight to the cot in the corner of the room. She kicks off her shoes before reclining on the makeshift bed.  
  
She falls asleep a few minutes after her head hits the pillow and dreams about Scott and the large, empty airport in Berlin.  
  


* * *

  
  
She had at least three hours of sleep before she and the ants stowed on a plane to D.C. Most of the ants are wearing cameras for Hank so that there’s an extra pair of eyes to help with the navigation.  
  
The plan is to replace the bug they put on Ross’ phone with a different one, which would work together with the device she’s going to put in his shoes (she brought enough for ten pairs). The two pieces of equipment emit an intermittent high frequency sound that imitates a bat’s bio sonar. It’ll enable Hank to reconstruct all the locations Ross goes to, which hopefully includes the Pentagon.  
  
It’s straightforward: she goes inside the house, plant the bugs and then leave. A fifteen-minute job, more or less. However, the trip to DC takes five hours and the three-hour time difference between San Francisco and Washington means that when she reaches Ross’ residence, everybody in the house could be awake. She might not have considered the time difference between the two cities when she decided to this thing she’s about to do.  
  
This might be one of her worst ideas ever.  
  
 _(“Your mother volunteered for a SHIELD op that started like this.”  
  
“Is that why you didn’t look surprised when I said I can do this tonight?”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
“What happened?”  
  
“She got chased by a flock of birds.”  
  
“Oh.”  
  
“If it’s any consolation, that mission was a success. It just took her a few hours to get the birds to stop following her.”)_  
  
Pink and orange streaks escape from the darkness as the sun starts to rise. Ross’ neighborhood is still asleep, save for the secret service agents posted by the door of the Secretary’s house.  
  
She and the ants enter the house through an open window on the second floor. The ants spread out immediately to help with the surveillance. She then climbs down from Marie Antoinette’s back to stand on the ledge to survey the room.   
  
The first thing she sees is the humongous dog sleeping at the foot of the bed.  
  
And then she sees the other one sleeping on the floor.  
  
Then, a man snores.  
  
The room with the open window is Secretary Ross’ bedroom and he has two dogs sleeping inside with him.  
  
Theoretically, the plan was simple. And it would have been simple, if Ross didn’t have any dogs (or any pet that had been predators at some point in their evolutionary lives, for that matter). Not to mention the fact that all her encounters with the neighbors’ pets were anything but delightful. A tiny Chihuahua looks harmless when you’re normal-sized but it’s a different story all together when you’re smaller than an ant and that tiny Chihuahua bares their sharp fangs.  
  
Hope can feel her chest tighten as her heart starts to race. The dogs are on the large side, capable of mauling an average-sized man and tearing their face off.  
  
 _“The phone is on the bedside table.”_ Hank says. She peers from the ledge and sees it on the right side of the bed.  
  
She swallows the ball of trepidation in her throat and squares her shoulders as she walks backwards. Marie Antoinette’s going to be benched for this— the dogs are asleep, but the moment they wake up (which is any time) and they see something flying, they’re going to be curious. And the last thing she needs is curious dogs, especially curious _large_ dogs.  
  
She takes several deep breaths to calm herself down. _Go to the phone, install the bug. Go to the closet, install the bugs. Simple._ She’s going to make this simple.  
  
Hope starts to run and when she reaches the edge of the ledge, she jumps.  
  
As she dives from the ledge, she focuses on minimizing the impact of her landing on the floor. She still hasn’t perfected landing on a freefall – and neither has Scott (but that’s beside the point because he’s not the one who’ll get chased by two dogs if there’s suddenly a small hole in the floor). She suddenly wishes that they had practice sessions with freefall landing.  
  
When she feels her feet make contact with the floor, she maintains her momentum and rolls on her shoulders, skidding just a few inches away from the tail of the dog sleeping on the floor.  
  
She freezes when she sees the tail twitch.  
  
The dog doesn’t seem to have been awakened by her imperfect landing. She lets out a deep breath, one she didn’t know she was holding before slowly standing up and looking around. The dog asleep on the floor looks like a mountainous region made entirely out of coarse fur.   
  
Hope cautiously watches it before running towards the table.  
  
The floor was clutter-free, allowing her an unhampered sprint to the side table, and the climb up to the top was relatively easy; Scott took it upon himself to teach her the basics of parkour and she had supplemented his lessons with her training in wall climbing (which she also taught to Scott).  
  
The phone was near the alarm clock. The clock’s ticking – barely noticeable to humans – sounds like drums beating on top of her head. This was one of the disadvantages of the old suit: aside from the lining being too light, the helmet can’t consistently protect its wearer from the disproportionate cacophony of sounds around them. And right now, she is simply too near the source of the sound for the helmet to shield her effectively from the sound waves.  
  
Hope grits her teeth and works through the ticking. She turns the phone around and places the bug under the camera. The device, if not miniaturized, is smaller than a dime; after applying the Pym particle on it, it looks like a fleck of dust.   
  
“Secured the—”   
  
An earsplitting, high-pitched sound suddenly fills the room. Hope cries out in pain as she feels the sound of the alarm clock ripping through her, making her stagger towards the edge of the side table and falling to the floor.  
  
Her head is throbbing and there’s a persistent ringing in her ears when she opens her eyes. She groans, tasting copper on her lips.  
  
 _“Hope?”_  
  
She doesn’t answer Hank, not just yet. Hope focuses on breathing first, ignoring the headache, the dancing stars in front of her eyes, the buzzing in her ears, and the fact that her lips are bleeding. The alarm clock blares on but it now sounds like they’re coming from a distant place.  
  
The sleeping inhabitants in the room begin to stir. Something on the surface begins to thump and she can feel the floor being scraped.  
  
 _“Hope, are you okay?”_ she can hear the panic in her father’s tone but she’s not sure. The ringing in her ears hasn’t subsided yet.  
  
“I’m fine.” She wheezes but stays put in her position. She fell in the space between the bed and the table and she’s pretty sure there’s going to be a dent on the floor where she landed.  
  
“Mornin’ boys.” She hears Ross say. The bed shifts and she starts to hear the dogs buzzing excitedly.  
  
 _Oh no._  
  
Hope forces herself to roll farther towards the wall. The dogs have started to run around the room as they waited for Ross. The movements make her head start hurting again and her stomach roils, like she’s going to throw up any minute.  
  
And, okay, she _might_ have miscalculated the size of the dogs because one of them just crawled under the bed with little difficulty.  
  
She stays incredibly still when the air around her begins to swirl, as the dog begin to sniff the floor, picking up her scent.  
  
 _“Maybe you should get out from under the bed.”_ Hank suggests. She ignores him.   
  
It might have been a stupid decision to stay lying down on the floor. Now, there’s a dog with a nose like a vacuum and it’s only a matter of time before she gets sucked towards the general direction of the dog’s mouth. At the same time, she can’t start moving now because that’s the easiest way to get to the dog’s mouth.  
  
Her heart pounds painfully against her chest and she squeezes her eyes shut. She doesn’t want to hurt the dog (that was how the neighbor’s cat got her—she didn’t want to hurt it because, really, that wasn’t fair), but if she has to do it…  
  
“Billy, what are you doing under there?”  
  
The dog suddenly scrambles away from her to greet his owner, and Hope uses the distraction stand up and to quickly climb up, hiding behind the headboard.  
  
She stays hidden while Ross talks to his dogs like a parent would a three-year old, while he shuffles about and makes his bed. This is the noisiest morning ruckus she has observed (but not the earliest— Scott wakes up at four in the morning to eat breakfast and then comes back to bed afterwards. It’s a habit he picked up in prison, she thinks, since Luis would also wake up at 4 AM to make breakfast).  
  
“Who wants to go out for a run?”  
  
The dogs bark excitedly, their paws scuttling about on the floor.   
  
A few minutes later, the bedroom door opens with the dogs running out. Ross follows after them, closing the door behind him.  
  
Hope waits for a few more minutes before climbing out of her hiding place.  
  
The closet is to her right; she saw Ross take out his morning run clothes from there. She jumps onto the bed and bounces forward, landing on the floor with more grace than she did a while ago.  
  
It takes her a little less than five minutes to finish the job. Ross owns five pairs of shoes, six if she counts the running shoes.   
  
She calls Marie Antoinette when she’s done, and the ant gives her an affectionate nuzzle on the leg after landing.  
  
Hope smiles and rubs the top of the ant’s head before climbing up her back.  
  
“Let’s go home, Marie Antoinette.”


	3. Chapter 3

Hope has always believed that the probability of something bad happening is directly proportionate with the good. Simply put, bad things always happen after something good occurs. She’s experienced this so often she’s come to expect it (and no, it hasn’t made her averse to happiness; it just made her ready for these kinds of things. It’s why her contingency plans have contingency plans).

So it wasn’t really a surprise for her when, a day after they find the information they needed, she finds herself in the garden in the middle of the night, trading punches with two men who were trying to break inside her father’s home.

(And the information isn’t complete yet—they have partial coordinates for a place that doesn’t seem to exist but which they have data for because Ross had been there)

It’s a lopsided fight at the start—she didn’t have time to put on her suit and both men are exceptionally well-trained in hand-to-hand combat (even the one-armed one), and incredibly strong. While she can dodge their blows (and not that easily), they effortlessly parry her punches and block her kicks.

So she calls for the ants. 

All of them.

It starts with the carpenter ants flying around them, occasionally hitting the men in their faces as she tries to fight them off. 

A punch in the gut makes her stumble backwards and fall on the grass. At the same time, a tremendous number of carpenter ants are now in the garden, the buzz of their wings enough to probably wake up the entire neighborhood.

Hope directs the ants towards the faces of both men as she scrambles to stand up. The sight of the ants banding together like a large, thick black curtain and swiftly launching themselves onto the intruders is _terrifying_ , even for her.

And it was a good enough distraction because she was able to take down the one-armed man while he gapes at the ants’ monstrous display of solidarity.

“What the hell?”

Hope goes low, bringing him down with a hard kick behind the knee and he falls. She makes sure that he stays down by ordering the bullet ants to _keep_ him down and for good measure, directs the fire ants to form a chain around his ankles.

She then focuses her attention on the other man who is trying to ward off the swarm and definitely not one-armed. 

Hope uses the horde of carpenter ants to conceal her punches. She directs them to swarm his face and then gives way to her fist at the last minute.

His parries aren’t effortless now and the ants protect her from his blows, allowing themselves to be used as her shield. The bullet ants help out by climbing onto the man’s pants and begin their attack.

She needs to end this fight soon. She never managed this many ants before (well, not consciously); and concentrating on five different things at the same time would mean she won’t be able to maintain her hold on the ants for long.

The carpenter ants swirl around the man’s head like a hurricane and then Hope jumps forward, locking her legs onto the man’s neck, using her momentum to bring him down to the ground. The carpenter ants disperse and the fire ants form a chain around the man’s neck.

“Stand down, Van Dyne.” She hears Hank say (although it’s a little bit too late—everybody’s on the ground). She slowly gets up to her feet and looks behind her. Hank’s watching her, and beside him is an imposing man with a patch over his left eye.

Hope can see the amusement on the face of the man with an eye patch and Hank… well, Hank seems to be beaming with pride.

“Gentlemen,” the man says. He has a commanding voice and sounds like he’s a no-nonsense kind of man, “it seems you’ve already met Dr. Pym’s daughter. Now, can we all go inside to talk business?”

~*~*~

They have a total of four guests—a woman who introduced herself as Maria Hill arrived a few minutes after, passing through the front door unlike their two other visitors.

Hope sucks on a slice of orange while waiting for her tea to reach a drinkable temperature. They’re in the kitchen, with awkward silence hanging above them—it hasn’t really sunk in that she just beat Captain America _and_ the Winter Soldier with a lot of help from the ants (the ants!)

She tries not to openly stare at them. They have multiple ant stings on their faces (which are healing remarkably fast) but it doesn't detract from the fact that they're handsome men… who have really broad shoulders. The kitchen suddenly feels too small with all of them inside.

“To what do we owe this honor of a late night visit?” Hank starts, the sarcasm dripping in his tone.

“Well, I was here visiting an old friend until these two fools showed up.” Hank’s ‘old friend’ is Nick Fury, formerly the head of SHIELD. Hope’s quite certain of two things: one, that man’s supposed to be dead, and two, SHIELD is no more.

And yet, Nick Fury’s in their kitchen talking about some present-day SHIELD business with Hank.

Captain America – Steve Rogers – has an expression on his face that looks akin to a child who’s just been reprimanded by his favorite teacher for being too disruptive in class. Beside him is the Winter Soldier (he wants to be called Barnes. Just Barnes) and he looks like he’d rather be anywhere else than here. Looking closer, one can see the weariness fraying in the edges as though they've been battling with problems spanning seventy-something years during the past few days (which, to be honest, is probably the case)

It’s Maria Hill who speaks for them, “We have an area of mutual interest.” Hill keeps her attention on her, knowing exactly who's calling the shots in this operation.

Hope arches a brow but she doesn’t say anything. Not yet, anyway. She can feel Hank observing her as she deliberately takes another slice of orange and eats it, eyeing the woman speaking in behalf of their three guests.

For a moment, everyone is forgotten and it feels like she’s in the boardroom, meeting with another CEO regarding a new undertaking.

She tries to assess what they would want from them-- it’s not like they need any help. They’re SHIELD. Even if they say they don’t have the resources, the fact that they have Captain America and the Winter Soldier on their side means they can still easily destabilize political situations in medium-sized countries.

“And what are you proposing?” Hope says, finally.

“A joint venture.” The other woman answers, “We have the exact coordinates of the unit and the necessary equipment required to transport people.”

“What do you need us for, then?”

“Your access to a… certain location, and additional personnel— for discreet matters.”

Hope notes the choice of words and angles her head to the side, “What makes you think we can provide that kind of manpower?”

Maria Hill gives a small smile, “Our files indicate that the ant usually came with a wasp. Since there is ant, somewhere out there, we came here in the off-chance that there might be a wasp.” She says. It sounds cryptic— and it’s meant to be cryptic but Hope knows what she’s trying to tell them.

Hill glances at the two men to her right, “And besides, some problems can’t be solved by punching everyone.”

Hope looks at Nick Fury first before taking an inquiring look at Hank, who shrugs. She looks back at Hill.

“I’m listening.”

~*~*~

Hope stares at the 3D layout of the Pentagon, thanks to the Secretary Ross. The man was fond of going there. Not every day, but he was there enough times that he should probably just give up being State Secretary and be Secretary of Defense instead.

They’ve actually already formulated a plan on how to get in the lab (through this lab technician called Burns, who is as absent-minded as he is smart. And he’s very smart). But with the new people involved, the plan has to be modified. They need an updated blueprint for the Raft (as the prison was called) and since the prison is US-funded, the plans are definitely in the Pentagon.

She magnifies the ventilation shaft at the corner of the lab. She still hasn’t decided whether going to the lab first before going to the servers is more efficient or vice-versa.

“Send the ants to the lab while you’re going to the server.”

Hope looks up and sees Hank going through the doorway, “You said you were going to sleep.” She says, almost accusingly. He’s wearing a dressing gown over his pajamas.

“And you said you were going to sleep.” He counters and sits on the stool beside her, “Yet, here we are.”

Hope rolls her eyes and brings her attention back to the blueprint. Hank might be right, though. It could be more efficient if she and the ants split up-- she can install the backdoor program on the DoD mainframe while Hank can assess the lab’s layout.

(She’s loves working alongside the ants on operations to a point that she might not give them to Scott when he gets back. Let Ant-Man be without his ants).

Speaking of ants… 

Hope switches off the map and turns to Hank, “What did Hill mean when she said that the ant usually goes with a wasp?” she asks, echoing a part of the conversation a few hours ago.

“I think you already know what that means.” Hank replies.

Hope chews on the inside of her cheek. She suddenly remembers how Hank had adamantly refused using the Pym Particles against Darren. He didn't want anyone to suit up as Ant-Man because that means at some point, someone will have to be the Wasp. And he didn't want that person to be her… at least, during that time.

“There were other…consequences if I were to choose my successor.”

“Consequences?”

“Nick Fury had an idea of bringing a group of remarkable people together to prevent global threats that ordinary soldiers can’t fight.” He starts and leans back on his chair, “The thought that we aren’t alone in the universe hasn’t actually been at the forefront of everybody’s minds back then but Nick always had foresight.”

Hope has no idea where this conversation is going so she lets him continue.

“Nick knew that I was against anyone using my suit and my tech but he stubbornly proposed that in case I changed my mind, that my successor be part of the…” Hank trails off as if he now only fully regrets his decision, “…the Avengers Initiative.”

“The Avengers Initiative.” Hope looks at him in disbelief, “You agreed to that?”

Hank shrugs, “I didn’t think I’d change my mind.”

“Scott’s an Avenger?”

“It’s a long-standing invitation, so, yes.”

Hope can feel laughter bubbling inside her and she doesn’t know if it’s just exhaustion or the absurdity at the thought that Scott is a member of the Avenger by just _being_ Ant-Man.

( _“What kind of power is ant, anyway and would the Avengers even need it?”_

_“Are you seriously considering applying to become one?”_

_“I don’t think you can apply to become an Avenger, but that would be_ really _awesome. Plus, I can finally meet Captain America. But I don’t think they’d want me, ex-con. Moral turpitude, and all that. You, though. You’re like, perfect Avengers material.”_

_“A rich kid with daddy issues, wearing a suit to perform super heroic deeds? They already have Stark for that.”_

_“Yeah, but I think if I had to choose my benevolent tech overlord, I’d choose the Pyms over Stark. And I’m not saying that because I’m with you.”)_

“Scott’s an Avenger.” She repeats, this time in declaratory form.

“Ant-Man is an Avenger.” Hank corrects.

“And you didn't want Ant-Man to be an Avenger?”

Hank sighs and shakes his head, almost sadly, “Hope, there’s an old SHIELD saying that goes, _‘the ant and the wasp are an unlikely pair, but they always go together’_. That invitation was for two people.”

This time she hears what he wasn’t saying loud and clear because she can see it on his face.

_And I didn't want to lose you like I lost your mother._

But the wistful look on Hank’s face disappears when he smiles at her, “But the way you held your own against two super soldiers was… nothing short of spectacular. That screen of carpenter ants was just sublime. I think you can handle it.”

The feeling of absolute glee from the sheer, unadulterated pride from Hank is a knee-jerk reaction. She knows that she deserves more from him, but she can’t help but feel ridiculously pleased about it because _her dad’s proud of her_ , damn it.

She snorts, trying to conceal her happiness, “Sublime? Maybe you need to sleep, Hank.”

“Maybe _you_ should go to sleep.” He replies, “I’m not the one heading to the Pentagon tonight.”

“Just making slight changes to the plan. I’ll sleep when I’m done.”

“You’re not going to sleep, then.” Hank mutters as sliding off the chair, “Good night.” He says and walks out of the lab.

“Good night.” she replies and turns on the map again.

~*~*~

It turns out that breaking into the Pentagon wasn't as difficult as she had first imagined—it was slightly terrifying at the start, since there was an eight-thousand-foot drop involved, but the heist (can she say heist? It sounds like something Scott would say) went well. Her new wings worked excellently (there’s a more instinctive feel to it, and it quickly reacts to a change in her position enabling her to fly much faster than before) and she was able to get the bow, the jet/bird/wing pack (she didn’t ask what it’s called exactly—for all she knows, it’s called ‘marty mcflying bird wings’ and she’d rather call it a bird suit, if that’s the case), and most importantly, the Ant-Man suit.

She didn’t leave the Pentagon with nothing to work on—she left them tiny replicas of the things she stole (back?). Burns the Lab Technician _might_ have had a small accident while working on one of the empty vials from the Ant-Man suit and _might_ have rendered most of the things around his table into tiny objects. He might also have a small burn on his neck, too.

(Hank gave her a new toy to test out and it’s actually really fun to use?)

The downside to a temporary partnership with SHIELD is that she’s going to be in a team. She’s not much of a team-player, especially when the team consists of people she doesn’t know. It took her a while to warm up to Luis, Kurt and Dave, and even then she’s still outside of that circle (the relationship is more like We-are-Scott’s-team-and-this-is-Scott’s-not-girlfriend-who-kicks-Scott’s-ass-therefore-we-like-her kind of relationship). 

Scott has always been the buffer in that situation. But Scott isn’t here right now.

And neither is Hank, because he’d rather tinker with the Ant-Man suit than help her deal with this situation.

(Because ‘not playing well with others’ is a personality quirk she did not get from her mother)

A three-dimensional rendering of the Raft’s updated blueprint (together with the data gathered from their bugs on Ross) is projected in the middle of the training area. She stares at it with hands crossed in front of her chest, assessing the routes for possible entry and exit while Steve Rogers and Barnes stand at both sides of the map, doing the same thing.

“The Raft can hold up to one hundred and fifty prisoners so we can safely estimate that it can support guards double that number.” Steve Rogers says, “Hill’s intel indicates that they always have at least seventy-five men guarding the facility. The bulk of the number handles the patrols around the prison.”

Seventy-five men to guard four people, what an overkill.

“What are the mission parameters?” Barnes asks.

She sees a flash of guilt across Rogers’ face but the expression had been so brief that she might have imagined it.

“Well, first of all, no killing.”

Hope doesn’t know anything about Steve Rogers. She knows all about Captain America—she’s read about him in the history books and from countless of features about him ever since that alien attack in New York. Captain America stands for freedom and liberty.

Steve Rogers, on the other hand… he’s a man out of time. People seem to forget about him, as though Captain America was born out of ashes. And maybe for people born after the war, he _was_ born out of the ashes. They can’t seem to reconcile the fact that Captain America _is_ Steve Rogers, a mere mortal just like the rest of them only stronger and beefier (a certain someone might also say that he looks like he has the face and physique of a man chiseled by the gods and seeing Rogers up close, she might actually concede to that description).

A shrug, “Guess I’ll be staying in the plane, then huh?” Barnes replies with a light, almost self-deprecating tone.

“Sure, if you can handle it with just one arm.”

Hope looks at the two men, her eyes darting from Rogers to Barnes. Melancholy and guilt hangs above their heads and it’s getting a little bit unbearable, being in the middle of it.

“Gentlemen, I know you two are working out some trust issues and some time-displacement issues as well, but I would really like to move on with the plan.” Hope interjects.

Scott might joke that she’s the Mr. Miyagi to his Daniel (she understands the reference, but she hasn’t actually seen the movie in its entirety) but the reverse is true when it comes to the art of ruining a moment.

Both men look at her and she’s startled by the intensity on their faces.

It seems they take their issues seriously.

Rogers blinks, “Sorry.” He says and shakes his head. He looks at her, jaws set, “Where were we?”

“Seventy-five men guarding four people, majority of which are assigned in patrols.” She motions to the blueprint, “There are a few guards in the entrance. And then a few more inside the actual containment area.” She says, augmenting the intel that SHIELD has with their own.

Hope reaches out to the 3D blueprint and pinches one of the areas on the plan, magnifying the location, giving them a better view, “Ross stayed in this position majority of the time when he went there. I’m assuming it’s a control room of sorts with at least fifteen men inside. And then he went out of this door,” she touches the 3D map again and makes a small sweeping gesture towards her, “Stayed here for a few minutes, gloated. I’m assuming this is where they’re being held.”

“Gloated?” Rogers repeats, “You bugged the Secretary of State? How did you manage to do that?”

“He gave us a visit and told us that Scott was aiding and abetting terrorists.” Hope replies, pointedly, “How did you think we got involved in this, Captain Rogers?”

The expression on Roger’s face suddenly turns downcast.

“I’m sorry about getting Scott in this kind of trouble, ma’am.” He says, “I didn’t think Tony… they’d go this far.”

He sounds so genuine, so… sincere. Hope doesn’t know how to handle such an obviously heartfelt apology, so she gives him a nonchalant shrug, “I’m not in interested in making or accepting apologies. Let’s move on for a while, Captain. I’d rather we focus on this prison break because I most definitely do not want to go to jail.”

She can feel Barnes looking at her so she looks back at him. He’s trying to suppress a smile

“You’re not helping, you know.” She tells him.

He gives her a small smile that lights up his eyes, “I’m sorry. It’s just… I thought I’ve seen a new Stevie—do you know he kissed a girl a few days ago? But… I guess some things never change.”

She glares at him because he’s really not helping _at all_.

"But if we're talking about a plan, we'll be better off by not going in guns blazing." Barnes offers.

"We definitely can't go in guns blazing, but it will take time to prepare an infiltration. I've already let them down by allowing them to get caught."

"Steve, you can't rescue them if you get caught yourself. And no, 'getting caught to gain access to the Raft' is not a plan at all." Barnes shifts on his feet, “Two people against seventy-five isn’t a fair fight. But if there are three of you…” he trails off.

“You’re un-volunteering yourself from plane duty?”

“Oh, no. Someone needs to stay in the plane, just in case.

“We could borrow an agent to guard the jet while we break into the Raft.” Rogers throws in.

Barnes shakes his head, “Too many people.” He pauses for a second, “Why not just bring everybody’s equipment inside via the ants? Let hell break loose.”

“That’s going to be chaos. I don’t want anyone dying in there.”

Hope doesn't say anything and merely listens as Captain America and the Winter Soldier bicker about their approach, like two old men arguing about the migration pattern of pigeons. She looks up at the lab and tries to see what Hank is doing (and if she can make him go down to deal with... this). She knows he can hear them, but Hank has his back turned against the glass window (because he has no plans of trying to deal with anything involving socialization _at all_ )

If this is a glimpse of Avengers team meeting (and she's pretty sure this is a mild version; a real one will have Tony in it and she _knows_ what Tony's like), then she's glad she's only become the Wasp recently; this seems like something she would have very little patience for.

"Ms. Van Dyne, what do you think?"

She looks at the two men, "Oh, I'm part of the conversation now?" She remarks and then ignores the sheepish looks that appear on their faces, "I agree with Barnes, with regard to infiltration. Two against seventy-five is a bit too much, even if they can't see me."

Rogers' jaw clenches and he lowers his head, the expression on his face overcast.

"Look, those four aren't going anywhere." She says, almost with a sigh, "And from what we’ve gathered, there isn't anything shady going on in the facility— at least not in a conducting-unethical-human-experiments way. Infiltration is a much more prudent approach."

Barnes makes a noise of approval and she gives an expectant look at Rogers, who acquiesces.

"Great." Hope takes a glance at her watch, "Now that we've agreed on the approach, let's get on with actually planning it."

~*~*~

They found their way inside the Raft when, after analyzing the blueprints, Rogers realized that the facility doesn’t have room for provisions that can last a month.

She had to sit out breaking into the UN Headquarters because her day job brought her to Tokyo (that Igarashi deal won’t sign itself), but she’s glad to hand that job over to the boys—she’s already had her fair share of breaking and entering the past few days.

But letting Rogers and Barnes take over that job means she comes back home to a finished plan that would be a bit difficult to pull off when you take in consideration the two-week vacation her assistant had scheduled in another continent (her assistant had also threatened to quit if she doesn’t take a vacation so Hope relented).

“I’m sorry if I’m not confident with this, at all.” She tells Rogers, who’s standing in the middle of the training room with his hands in his jeans pocket.

“I did some overseeing.” Hank says.

“Okay, let me give you my perspective.” Hope takes a deep breath and looks at Rogers, “The last time you planned something, people – innocent and well-meaning people – got caught.” She turns to her father and gives him a grim smile, “And the last time you planned something, a building imploded upon itself.”

“You planned that heist, Hope.”

“It didn’t end with an imploding building.” She counters. Hope turns her attention back to Rogers and Barnes, “And you know what the common denominator is, in those two plans? Me. Cleaning up the mess. The imploding building, understandable. Your plan, on the other hand…” she trails off and shakes her head instead.

“If it’s any consolation, you were at the forefront of their minds when they finalized everything.” Hank offers and looks at the two men, who both nod their heads in agreement.

“What, they’re gonna put me in a bottle and throw me at the Raft, hoping they’d hit the mark and not accidentally throw me into the ocean?”

Barnes eyebrows furrow, “No, of course not. No. You’re our infiltration man. Why would we put you inside a bottle?”

Hope glares at him for a few seconds, “So you’re going to throw me out of the quinjet, praying that I won’t get sucked in by the cargo plane’s engine?”

The look on their faces told her that this is what they planned for.

_(“What are you so worried about?”_

_“I’ve been running on little sleep the past few weeks— I don’t think I’ll be able to do this perfectly.”_

_“No one’s asking you to do this perfectly, Hope. Besides, you have three days to sleep. Take advantage of that vacation.”_

_“You just told me I’m going to fly towards a cargo plane. Have you seen the engines on those?”_

_“Your mom used to fly towards planes, and she never had an incident with the engines. The physics behind your wings is sound.”)_

Hope still doesn’t get enough sleep during the first few days of her “vacation” (she’ll sleep when all of this is done); instead, she reviews the plan over and over, committing the blueprints to memory while also doing some light work for Pym Tech

(because her assistant said, ‘go on a vacation’ but didn’t say anything about working _while_ on vacation). 

She did all of these by the beach because Pym Tech’s social media team made it clear that Hope Van Dyne: CEO is taking a vacation and she needs the suntan to show for it.

Although if she’s being perfectly honest about it, the reason why she’s anxious about doing this operation perfectly is because this will be the first time that Hank won’t be the voice in her ear, telling her that she’s on track. Hank won’t even see their progress—he’s staying home to dispel any suspicion that they’re somehow involved in the breakout (while SHIELD’s on hand to make it look like she’s out and about in her vacation).

So while Hank’s at home, she’s inside a metal can flying at a thousand miles per hour in the middle of god-knows-where surrounded by a vast ocean, to rescue a man who made a spur-of-a-moment decision to help out the hero he has idolized in a fight he knows nothing about and doesn’t concern him, and in the process turned into a giant and broke some planes before getting caught.

Putting it in that kind of perspective makes her question why she’s doing this.

(Crime-fighting partner. Friend. Cassie)

“Are you ready?”

Rogers stands with her as the quinjet’s loading hatch opens. They were nearing the Raft and the cargo plane is on its final descent.

Hope looks at him, “More or less.”

She doesn’t trust them – not the way she had recently learned to trust her father – but she trusts that they want to rescue their friends as much as she wants to rescue Scott.

“I’ll be right behind you.” He says, almost with a reassuring tone.

“You better be, you have my ants.” She replies and puts on her helmet before jumping out of the quinjet.

She freefalls in her normal size and counts to ten before shrinking. Her suit’s wings automatically pop out, quickly adapting to the angle of her body and the speed of her fall.

The cargo plane gets nearer and Hope can feel the force of the air pushing against her and her wings. Her heart thumps against her chest and she can hear her blood rushing in her head but she ignores all of it and twists her body, and flies against the wind.

She reaches the inside of the cargo plane a few minutes before it lands, and she makes herself comfortable on the topmost box in the pile with a Stark Industries logo.

_“Wasp, status.”_

Rogers will be the voice in her ear for this operation, and then later on, Scott.

"Two inside the cargo plane, fourteen boxes of provisions, landing in three minutes."

_"Copy that."_

The moment the plane's hatch opens, Hope zooms out, doing a quick recon of the landing bay.

"Two men for the welcome party. Three more assisting."

They were all in agreement that stunning precision is required for this prison break. There are only two of them and Rogers doesn't have his shield in the inevitable event that people start shooting at him.

She flies towards the door at the end of the landing bay, the only way inside the Raft (and the only way out). There were two more men with high-powered firearms standing guard. She passes on this information to Rogers as she makes her way to the landing bay's control room.

There are more men inside the Raft holding high-caliber weapons. She counts them as she whizzes past their heads, reporting the numbers back to the quinjet.

Their attack starts when she reaches the control room, the first of five that they have to disable before they can successfully breakout the facility's four prisoners.

"I'm in position." She says when she reaches the control room. Hope stays in a corner with her wings tucked inside her suit, on top of one of the three surveillance cameras in the room. She watches the two men keeping watch in front of the screens.

_"Copy that. En route to the Raft."_

Hope waits for the signal to drop the frequency disrupter (of unknown origin-- they decided against using the SHIELD-issued ones because don't want to start…something. Just in case it's found) and basically starting chaos.

Time goes by slowly when you're tiny and it feels like she's been waiting for hours when, suddenly, the video feed from the ants' cameras go online in her helmet. 

Rogers has landed.

_"Commence phase two."_

She quickly flies towards the processors and drops the device. The moment it hits the floor, a loud hiss fills the room. Then the screens go blank, the radio goes silent, and the lights in the surveillance cameras go out.

Hope immediately incapacitates the men inside the room, flying behind the head of one of the men and slamming his head on the screen and then punching the other's jaw.

"Sector one's offline." She reports and flies out of the control room.

Hope takes out the men in the hallways, moving like a bullet ricocheting on the walls. She keeps her punches light— the speed of her flight and a hard punch is a deadly combination.

The ants meet her as she makes her way to sector two. They swarm around her, hiding her from the surveillance cameras as she flies as close to the walls as possible.

She repeats the same thing in the control rooms in sector two and three. There's little indication that the facility’s personnel has been alerted to the chaos in sector one, although someone has noticed that, "shouldn't we have started with the submersion protocols?" (then she knocks them all out with a punch in a face and a kick in the gut)

"Sector three's offline. En route to sector four."

Hope and the ants slip inside a ventilation shaft to make their way to sector four's control room, the largest in the facility, which also has direct access to the cells where Scott and the rest of Rogers' team are being held.

She directs the ants to Scott's cell, monitoring their progress while she stays inside the room, where chaos is starting to brew. Half of the screens - she presumes to be those for sectors one to three - are down and the highest-ranked officer is barking out orders to make contact with the other sectors and ordering a team to investigate.

"Captain, expect more men headed your way." She says and flies way above the men's heads, taking a cursory check to see if Rogers has been discovered (he hasn't, yet). So far, so good.

_"Hello?"_

Her heart skips a beat and there's a momentary sense of relief when she hears Scott's voice. She can't see him clearly, though— the ants' point of view are... well, it's an ant's point of view.

"Do not talk unless absolutely necessary." She says, a little too tersely, "How many guards are there in your location?"

A pause.

_"Eight."_

"Armed?"

_"To the teeth."_

"There's twenty of each kind of ant we have in the lab." She tells him as she switches off the link to the ants’ cameras, "Marie Antoinette has your suit. Wait for my signal."

Hope changes her location in the room, determining the positions of the people she needs to incapacitate first. The highest-ranked officer is in the middle of the room, but the men near the phones are scattered around. Trepidation claws inside her. They're mid-operation, almost nearing the end. She can't make a mistake.

_"Commence phase three."_

Hope drops the frequency disrupter and launches herself towards the officer, throwing a sturdy jab on his jaw. She hears a crack after she makes contact (oops) and the man drops down to the floor, unconscious.

"Scott, suit." She orders and flies around the room, knocking out people left and right as she would the dummies during training (or, in Luis' words, like a game of human pinball).

_"You have no idea how happy I am to hear your voice."_ Scott says almost breathlessly, his voice standing out from all the shouting around her, as she knocks out the eleventh man inside the control room.

"You won't be too happy when I punch you in the face later." She replies, slamming the twelfth man against the wall and then casually throwing a jab-hook combo at the thirteenth.

_"I deserve more than a punch after what I did."_

(Fourteenth, fifteenth, sixteenth)

"Yes, you do."

(Seventeenth)

_"You're free to punch me as many times you want."_

(Eighteenth, nineteenth)

"Are you really prepared to face the consequences of that offer?"

(Twentieth)

_"Uh...not really."_

Hope does a once over of the room, double-checking if anyone's still conscious or dead.

"Control room in sector four is clear, Captain." She tells Rogers, "Scott, keep the room clear."

_"Wait, Captain America is here?"_

"En route to sector five." She says, ignoring Scott's question (and his somewhat excited tone) and goes to that last section of the facility alone.

The last sector is the easiest to clear and she's in and out of that area in less than three minutes. 

"Sector five's clear."

_"Good job. Rendezvous in the hangar."_

Hope catches up with them in sector two. Scott is ahead of the group with the ants, just in case anyone recovered quickly from the beating they took from Captain freakin' America. Rogers is carrying Maximoff, while the two other members of Rogers' team flanked them. The deathly pallor on the girl's face seems to be the reason for the grim expression on everybody's faces.

She flies ahead of them, getting a lead on Scott just before they reach the hangar. Barnes has managed to land the quinjet despite the cargo plane, and has been waiting for them by the hatch, holding a large gun in his only hand.

Hope transforms back to normal size a few feet away from Barnes.

It startles him slightly, but he recovers quickly, "Where's the rest of them?"

"They're right behind us." She answers, releasing the faceplate from her helmet. Cold air whipped her face as she finally lets out a sigh of relief. Fucking finally. 

As if on cue, Scott appears beside her.

Barnes takes a glance at the watch hooked on the front pocket of his tactical vest. "Twelve minutes." He says. There's a small quirk at the corner of his lips, "Guess, Steve owes you again." He then goes inside the quinjet to get ready for takeoff.

"Steve?" Scott asks. "Oh my god, you're on first-name basis with Captain America."

Hope turns towards Scott and sees that he has also taken off his helmet. There's a fresh bruise underneath his left eye, and a cut on his lip that's healing.

Her eyes narrow, "What happened to your face?"

"Prison fight?" He replies shrugging, "You, on the other hand, look all glow-y."

"I'm supposed to be on vacation."

Scott's face lights up, "You closed the deal with the Japanese company?"

"How did you know I was going on vacation after that deal?"

He makes a face, "You told me? You were already half-asleep when you said that though, so I don't think you'll remember. That was right before I went to Germany and..." He trails off with his expression falling, after realizing they're here _because_ of what happened in Berlin.

She doesn't say anything and instead gives him a long, hard stare. This only works for several seconds because he looks back at her with an expression of contriteness. It also doesn't help that he's also flashing her that stupid puppy dog look.

Hope leans forward and gives him a quick, hard headbutt.

Scott yelps in pain and doubles forward, his hand covering the right side of his face.

"I _knew_ you weren't going to give me a kiss." He says and peers at her from the spaces in between his fingers, "But yeah, totally deserved that."

She smirks and moves towards the quinjet when suddenly, she feels herself get pulled backwards. Strong arms wrap around her waist as Scott presses his lips to hers. It’s a gentle kiss and a short one; just enough for her to realize how much she had missed him the past few weeks.

“Did you seriously just give me a rescue kiss?” she asks, brushing her thoughts away (because Scott is too perceptive for his own good).

“Well, you did rescue me— us. And I could easily turn that into a rescue make-out but I also know PDAs aren’t your thing and also, we’re not yet in _that_ stage of our friendship…” he trails off and gives her a dopey smile.

She feels her lips tugging upwards and she looks away from him. She then sees Rogers and the rest of the team emerge from inside the Raft. 

The small smile quickly vanishes from her face, "All the ants are accounted for?" She asks as she puts her faceplate on.

Scott nods, not needing to look to the side to know what brought about the change in her tone.

When she hears her helmet lock into place, she motions for Scott to follow her.

“Get inside or I’m gonna lose my bet with Rogers.”

~*~*~

SHIELD might have limited resources but the resources they do have are _impressive._

A medical team was on standby when they arrived in the helicarrier. The four - Scott, Wilson, Barton and Maximoff - are quickly whisked away to the medical bay while the three of them are brought to a conference room where Maria Hill is waiting for them for a debrief.

Hope could barely follow the discussion between Hill and Rogers-- the exhaustion has finally caught up with her and for once her brain and her body are finally in agreement that she should probably rest.

They're almost done with the debrief when Scott and Wilson enter the room.

"Where's Barton?" Hill asks.

"He's staying with Wanda. Said he can do the debrief later." Wilson answers as Scott, who's still wearing the suit, finds his way to her side. The medical team put some ointment on the bruise underneath his eye and the one forming by his right temple.

Hill looks at Scott, "Lang?"

Scott glances at her first with a confused expression on his face before looking back at Hill and raising a hand, "Present?"

The woman turns towards the large screen beside her, which lights up when she makes a motion with her hand, "This was just uploaded online a few hours ago."

Footage of a giant man breaking off a wing of a parked plane and waving it around pops up on screen. It's a video from the fight in Berlin, but from a different perspective-- a nearer one from a very good vantage point.

"I think I'm going to get sick." Scott says when it gets to the part where he crashes down on the plane (and she admits, he's looking a little green around the edges).

Hope assumes that no one has made a connection between the suit and Pym Tech (not yet?) because she doesn't think they have the budget to pay for the damages (they could probably pay for the plane and the equipment Scott crashed into but they - whoever they may be - might expect them to pay for all the damages... maybe they can say someone stole the suit? Should she get the legal department to look into this?).

"We're expecting this to be news tomorrow. Internet's going insane about it." Hill says and turns her attention back to them, "Speaking of which, the good news is that none of the countries who have signed the Accords have ratified it yet. Meaning, as long as it's not been ratified in any of those countries, the Accords will be toothless."

"And the bad news?" Wilson asks.

"The bad news is that that footage might spur some countries to ratify the Accords. Stark's offered to pay for the damages in the airport--"

"Thank god." Hope mutters. Scott throws an apologetic look her way.

"--but at some point, Stark's habit of throwing money at everything will get old." Hill looks at them "Right now, the only people we can possibly pull out of this mess legally are Lang, Wilson, and Barton."

Silence fills the room. Rogers flashes another one of his repentant expressions (he seems to have a lot of those). Barnes remains impassive beside him.

Hope is fighting the urge to nod off. The room feels oddly conducive to a nap.

"In the meanwhile, I think it'll be safer if the three of you lay low."

"If the Accords would need to be ratified, doesn't that mean we can go home?" Scott asks Hill. "At least, for now?"

Hill glances at him and shrugs, "Legally? You can go home. But the reality on the ground is that Ross will just bring your ass back to the Raft."

Wilson crosses his arms in front of him, "Is there a way to get rid of Ross?" He asks. Hill's brow rises, which makes him quickly follow up with, "Not by assassinating him or killing him through an accident or something. Just him out of the picture. Alive."

Hill pauses, "We're looking at all the possibilities." She says, after a while. She then takes a sweeping glance at all of them, "Debrief over— for now. We've assigned you living quarters while you're here. Unfortunately, we've run out of singles."

The last bit was directed at her but she doesn't mind rooming with another person (except if it isn't Scott). An agent escorts them to their room, with Wilson getting to his room first, because they suddenly hear him whooping. He's obviously seen his bird suit inside.

"Your things are already inside." The agent says, a young man in his mid-twenties, "Breakfast at the hall is served at 0500 hours to 0800." He adds, except Hope has no idea what time it is at this part of the world...wherever they are.

"Thanks." Scott says and Hope moves ahead of him, a little bit more desperate to get to a bed.

The overnight bag she brought with her when she was fetched by SHIELD from her vacation getaway sits on one of the tables. Another bag, the one that contains Scott's clothes, is deposited beside it. Someone also transferred the ants and their portable ant farm from the quinjet.

"You brought me clothes?" Scott asks, almost in astonishment.

She gives him a quizzical look, angling her head the side which she immediately regrets because it made her eyes twinge.

"I kinda thought after that stunt I pulled off, I don't deserve this kind of... I dunno, thoughtfulness?"

Hope looks at him with a thought that he might be right, but at the same time, there were practicalities to be considered. One of which is that he can’t wear the Ant-Man suit every day.

"Luis picked your clothes." She says, finally and rummages through her bag, "And, before I forget." She says and hands him a small, analog cell phone.

He stares at her and her outstretched hand.

"It's a burn phone from SHIELD. Untraceable." Hope checks the clock on the phone “It's just dinner time back home. You can call Cassie.” She says with a small smile.

Scott looks at her like she grew two heads AND speaking in some archaic language he doesn't know even existed. 

Finally, he takes the phone from her hand. He has a tentative expression on his face.

"Maggie isn't too pleased with what you did. But they're expecting your call."

"Maggie? You met Maggie?"

"No." She answers, a little too quickly. "Luis told me that Hank told Paxton, who told Maggie." She winces slightly when she remembers how _that_ narration went.

"That would have been a very long story."

“You have _no_ idea.”

They stare at each other for a moment before Scott ashamedly looks down at the floor as if all the idiotic things he had done in the past few weeks are quietly catching up with him.

Hope tries to say something but finds that she actually doesn't know what to say. So she merely sighs and shakes her head. She then takes a set of clothes to change in and her bag of toiletries (because she's not going to wait for Scott to decide what he wants to do when her eyelids start to feel heavier by the minute) and makes her way to the bathroom.

"Are you sure they're expecting my call?"

"Yes." she replies and looks back at him, "And I think you should call before that video of you destroying a plane is all over the news... if it hasn't already been shown, that is."

Scott blinks, "That's a good idea."

It takes her several minutes to get out of her suit and when she steps out of the bathroom, Scott nowhere inside the room.

(Maybe he was kidnapped? By SHIELD? Aliens? She’s too goddamn tired to think about where he went; she’s already rescued him, he's bound to be somewhere)

She goes to the nearest bed and sprawls on it, finally allowing the exhaustion from the past few weeks to bear down on her. Her bones feel like it’s sagging off her skin but being in bed with very little to worry about also makes her feel somewhat lighter.

Sleep claims her the moment she closed her eyes.

~*~*~

Hope wakes up with a start when she hears something rustling beside her.

“Oh god. I’m so sorry.”

Scott’s voice pierces through the haze of disorientation and she blinks trying to remember where she was and how she got here.

“I just thought you looked cold so I’m putting a blanket—”

Helicarrier. Middle of the Indian Ocean. Prison break.

Scott.

She reaches out and clasps her hand over his wrist, tugging him towards her, which he takes as an invitation to climb on the bed with her (she doesn’t mind).

“Better?” he asks, settling in between her and the wall. Hope shifts her position in the bed, lying on her side to wrap her right arm around his waist and locking her legs around his. He’s very warm.

A pleased sound escapes her throat.

“Guess that’s a yes.” He says, answering his own question, “But I’m gonna need that blanket.” He moves slightly and she feels something cover her waist down to her feet.

Scott gently rubs her back and she burrows her face on his chest.

“You’re being uncharacteristically snuggly.”

She doesn’t open her eyes, “Don’t like it?”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, I’m okay with this. Very okay, if it’s okay with you.” He answers, “But well, I basically offered to be your punching bag and you willingly accepted.”

"Maybe I just missed you."

If she had been wide awake, she would have noticed that Scott's gone absolutely still. She would have noticed his sharp intake of breath and she would have automatically interpreted both as signs of rejection. But she's in that space between slumber and consciousness where cautiousness with her emotions is momentarily forgotten.

"Really? All this time I thought you found me annoying."

"You _are_ annoying. Doesn't mean I can't miss you."

"I missed you too." He says, and kisses the top of her head which makes her smile. "Also, thanks for breaking me out of that super max."

She sighs and nestles her head on the crook of his neck, "What are partners for?"

"Yeah, but I’m pretty sure you’ve broken a lot of laws to do it. I didn’t see you as a law-breaking type of woman.”

"Was in the middle of industrial espionage when I met you." She mumbles.

"Oh. Right."

Hope shifts in the bed again. She hadn't realized how cold she was until Scott joined her in the bed. He's like this solid, man-sized, cuddly pillow of warmth.

"Thank you for cleaning up this idiot's mess." He says softly.

Scott Lang might be an idiot who makes poor life decisions but he’s _her_ idiot, the one whose heart skipped a beat when she told him she missed him (oh god, she hasn’t told him that he’s technically a member of the Avengers), the one who wanted to drape a blanket over her because he thought she _looked_ cold (tomorrow, she’s not going to remember how they got into this position, or the entirety of this conversation but she’s going to remember how she felt and that’s going to be a little bit more terrifying), and the one who didn’t know which part he should be more excited about—her coming to their rescue, or getting to shake Captain America’s hand again (she thinks it’s the… latter? Definitely the latter).

“Next time—no wait, there’s not going to be a next time. This is going to be the last time I’ll do something stupid—”

Hope snorts.

“No, really. Okay, no. The last time I’ll do something remotely illegal. Not doing something stupid might be a just a little—”

"Scott?" she says, interrupting him.

"Yeah?"

"Shut up."

She feels his chuckle reverberate in his chest. He presses his lips on top her head and pulls her closer to him.

“Good night, Hope.”

“G’night.”

It doesn’t take long before she falls asleep in Scott’s arms, her heart beating against his chest.

 

 

FIN

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ah, well, here's the end of the fic. Apologies for the long gap between the updates. I might have been a little bit lost on how to end it. Apologies too if you think it's too long. I'm also a little bit rusty with fic writing (hope it's not too obvious), but I want to write more in this fandom, if time permits :)
> 
> Thanks for reading :)


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